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Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Angola elections: AU observers praise 'improvements in democracy'

Angola's election last week "marked an important step towards consolidation of democracy" according to African Union election observers.

They announced the conclusion on Friday in French and Portuguese but did not release the statement in English until today.

The AU observers did not use the term "free and fair" when describing the elections in the almost-3,000 word statement.

Instead they concentrate on improvements that have been made, saying that the body:

"...commends the significant efforts that have been undertaken by electoral stakeholders to improve the Angolan electoral process, and which have contributed to enhancing the credibility of the 2017 elections".

This is not the AU's final conclusion as the vote count is still under way, and they promise a "more comprehensive and final report in due course".

The official result is not due until at least the 6 September.

But the electoral commission has already published provisional results they say count for over 98% of the votes, which show the ruling MPLA have won by 61.05% and the biggest opposition party, Unita, got 26.72% of the vote.

We reported earlier that the validity of these results is being disputed by the opposition parties.

In their statement, the AU observers encourage "recourse to legally established mechanisms should there be any dispute arising from the outcome of the elections".